Lonely Reign
by HardlyFatal
Summary: Draco Malfoy considers himself the ruling monarch of Slytherin. When a bizarre accident causes him to spend time with a Hufflepuff, will the Slytherin Prince decide to end his lonely reign? This story is a parody, mocking Mary-Sues. COMPLETE
1. Chapter 1

Title: Lonely Reign

Author: CinnamonGrrl

Disclaimer: I own nothing but an '89 Caddy Eldorado with a broken tape deck, and you're welcome to it.

Rating: Who knows what offends people? I gave it an R, just in case. 

Lonely Reign, Part 1

_Wednesday, 11:13 am, History of Magic class (Slytherin/Hufflepuff)_

Draco Malfoy's sobriquet was The Slytherin Prince, and it suited him nicely, he thought. Wasn't he absolutely regal in appearance and manner? And didn't he have a select group of courtiers tailing him through his every endeavour?

His silver gaze flickered over the occupants of the desks surrounding him, and he allowed that perhaps 'select' was a slight exaggeration. Crabbe and Goyle were playing a game of hangman by carving the letters and little dangling figure into Goyle's desk with a pocketknife, Bulstrode and Parkinson were doing homework for other classes. Zabini was sleeping. 

"I won!" exulted Crabbe. Draco glanced over at the carving. 

"You spelled 'Quidditch' wrong," he said with a sigh. "There's two d's, and there's no s in it at all." Crabbe looked crestfallen. Goyle gloated. 

Draco returned his attention to Professor Binns. _It's always good to have goals, _he thought. Important to keep pushing yourself, to exceed your personal best and outdo all previous accomplishments. It was the only explanation of which he could conceive for Binns' absolutely **stultifying** lecture that day. He had surpassed all previous lectures of Draco's personal experience, and possibly all previous lectures at Hogwarts, full stop.

One might think that hearing about the hippogriff stampedes of the ninth century would be an exciting tale, but one would be bloody well mistaken. 

_How a tale of rampaging beasts causing mayhem and chaos across two continents could be rendered actively boring was a matter of investigation for the Department of Mysteries,_ thought Draco, and then busied himself for the next few minutes pondering the oxymoronical concept of 'actively boring'.

It could be a weapon. A hex, upon casting of which the recipient is stricken by such a powerful sense of ennui that he is prepared to drill holes in his cranium to let the boredom seep out. _It could work_, he considered, and made a note to explore further.

So involved in his thoughts was Draco that it should have come as no surprise to him or anyone else when something happened.

Something dire.

Hannah Abbott, Susan Bones, Laura Madley. The so-called 'troika' of Hufflepuff sixth years, a veritable bevy of female pulchritude, and rumoured to have a single brain between them, which they traded off according to day (two days a week each, with Sundays off to let the poor overworked thing rest).

The troika _d'habitude_ passed Bins' soporific lessons engaged in what basically amounted to a slumber party, but without the slumber and, much to Draco's lament, _sans_ shorty pajamas. They gossiped, they read **Teen Witch** aloud to each other, they engaged in acts of personal hygiene and beautification, grooming and pulling at each other like baboons.

He had to admit, it paid great dividends. Giants of intellect they were not, but visions of loveliness—oh, my, yes.

Hannah was your classic blonde shepherdess type—short, pink and white English complexion, well-endowed enough to make even old Snape break into a sweat, with a placidly pretty face surrounded by long, bouncing, shampoo-commercial curls. Susan, on the other hand, was a lanky dark beauty, all raven hair and chocolate eyes and slender golden limbs. Laura was somewhere between the two of them- the most average of the three, being of middling height and figure. Her hair was a sort of bronze shade, neither red nor brown, her eyes an indeterminate hazel-green. All in all, they were well-matched.

_Shame they were Hufflepuffs_, thought Draco, and slouched more comfortably into his chair, the better to facilitate the nasty boy-thoughts that had crept into his mind. He was just getting to where he was showing Hannah a preferable use for her mouth than wittering on about cosmetic charms when there was a rather impressive BOOM! from behind him, and a flash of violet light arced toward the Slytherin side of the room.

And suddenly Draco was… shorter. 

When the puffs of lavender smoke cleared, Draco perused his surroundings and found that, where his housemates had been, now squatted a flock of birds. Dodo birds, to be precise. And it would appear that he himself had not escaped this ignominious fate, as he tried to speak and found himself able only to make an odd squawking noise.

Amazingly, Binns droned on, oblivious to the fact that half his class were no longer human.

"Oh, Merlin," Laura Madley cried from the back, and Draco whipped his head around (as well as he could) to see the girl with one hand clapped in horror over her mouth, the other dangling a wand from limp fingers. His feathered shoulders slumped in comprehension.

Madley had this deplorable habit of gesticulating with her hands whilst talking, and on those occasions that she was holding her wand at the time, various small disasters had occurred. None so grave as this, of course, but there was that time last year she'd described Harry Potter's latest masterful employ of the Wronski Feint and Apparated not the entire Charms class, but the entire Charms class' robes. And all the way to Wolverhampton, no less—the Muggle news was full of the anomaly of thirty-one black 'bathrobes' suddenly appearing in the middle of a tobaconist's in the city centre.

That was how it became public knowledge which were the under-robe garments (or in the case of Terry Boot, lack of same) favoured by fifth year Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws. After restoring everyone to a properly clothed state (and providing trauma counseling, as poor Boot had been in the midst of his own nasty boy-thoughts regarding the troika, with the expected physical reaction), Laura Madley had been scolded quite severely, and warned about careless wand-waving.

Apparently, the warning didn't 'take', because Madley had, in fact, engaged in waving her wand carelessly, and had, in fact, transfigured sixteen students into large, flightless fowl.

"Oh, Merlin," Madley repeated, walking toward her victims with hand outstretched in supplication. "Draco?" she asked him, reaching to touch his head. He squawked loudly and snapped at her. "Yes, that's you, then," she murmured, rubbing her injured fingers.

"Professor! Professor Binns!" Susan Bones called loudly, striding to the front of the room and knocking briskly on his desk, finally gaining that gentleman's attention. "There's been an accident." She gestured widely behind her, indicating the flock of Slytherins who were either sitting quietly in shock, like Draco, or trying to walk around and get their bearings, like Millicent Bulstrode, or else falling off their chairs, like Vincent Crabbe.

Binns' ghostly eyes rounded in shock. "Er… what happened?"

"There's been an accident," Bones repeated patiently. "We should go for help."

"Quite right," Binns agreed. Blaise Zabini flapped his stubby little wings and chirruped. "We'll need… er… Headmaster Dumbledore, of course, and Professors McGonagall and Snape." Three messengers were dispatched to fetch the respective authorities, and they left in a flurry of robes and excited whispers.

The moments until they returned with reinforcements were thick with tension and the fervent need for air circulation. Dodos, it would appear, had a significant and heretofore unknown flatulence problem, and it wasn't long before the remaining Hufflepuffs had flung open the windows and stood with heads hanging out, trying manfully to keep their breakfasts in place.

"Mr. Goyle!" Binns exclaimed suddenly, translucent hands flapping ineffectually. "Down! Get down!" Goyle had mastered the use of his short, splat-footed legs and waddled over to molest Pansy Parkinson. Her resulting shrieks of outrage rang off the stone walls. "Get down!"

Madley rushed to the happy couple and pulled Goyle away. "No, Gregory," she admonished gently, patting his feathery head. "Be a good boy until we can turn you back into a… boy."

Goyle decided to cut his losses and leaned against Madley's side, nestling his head against her bosom with a joyous sigh. Distracted, she didn't push him away, but continued to pet him. Draco frowned, or tried to, and hopped off his chair. He'd be damned if Goyle was going to cop a feel and Draco would have to spend his life ignorant of the pillowy softness of Laura Madley's cans.

Making his way to her side, he thrust his beak under her other hand, clearly indicated that he wanted a cuddle, too. "This is very upsetting, isn't it, Draco?" she asked mournfully, putting an arm around his long neck and stroking his wing. He nodded with vigour, then settled happily against her, his head propped snugly against her right breast. 

Just then the door flung open and McGonagall burst in, closely followed by Snape and Dumbledore. Their expressions of shock swiftly turned to expressions of disgust as they caught a whiff of _essence de dodo_.

"What in Merlin's name happened here?" Snape demanded nasally, pinching his nose shut.

He was met with silence. Binns didn't know, the Hufflepuffs didn't want to get their housemate in trouble, and the Slytherins were birds and therefore without power of speech.

Clutching Draco and Goyle more tightly round their necks, Madley spoke up. "It was me, Professor," she said, her voice quavering. Draco rubbed his cheek comfortingly against her nipple. "I was careless with my wand again."

"Madley, you imbecile!" McGonagall shouted, but was shushed by Dumbledore. He came forward, his face grave but somehow vastly amused at the same time. 

"This would be young Malfoy, then?" he asked. "He seems quite comfortable with you."

_Oh, I am_, Draco thought, and sighed contentedly against Madley's chest. 

"Poor things," she said, her voice thick with tears. "They must all be so scared."

Draco exchanged a look of 'yeah, right' with Goyle. Scared? Hm. Furious, violent, homicidal: yes, but scared: not likely. Then Madley's hand stroked down his back all the way to the end of his spine and Draco's eyes crossed with pleasure. Apparently that particular region was a big erogenous zone for a dodo.

"Hm, yes," Dumbledore said noncommittally. "Well, we'd best return them to their original states, Minerva." He and McGonagall raised their wands but before they could utter a word, Pansy started making an ungodly racket.

Cawing, honking, racing round the room with a decided spraddle and much flailing of stubby wings, she proceeded to go fairly berserk before plopping down in the middle of the aisle and, with a mighty heave, expel something from her nether region.

An egg.

"Oh, Gregory," Madley cooed. "You're going to be a father."


	2. Chapter 2

Lonely Reign, Part 2

_Tuesday, 2:36 pm, Study Hall (Slytherin/Ravenclaw)_

"Biscuit?" 

Draco looked up from his Arithmancy homework to see Laura Madley on the other side of the study hall classroom with a pinny over her robes. In her hands she carried a heaping platter of succulent-smelling biscuits. Word was that she was overcome with guilt, but all overtures of atonement had been met by stony silence. And not a few death threats.

In desperation, she'd spent hours in the kitchen baking biscuits ("By _hand_! Without _magic_!" Millicent had goggled) and was now endeavoring to tempt the sixth year Slytherins into forgiveness.

Usually the House of the Snake was good to hold a grudge for eight decades, at least. Seven if they were feeling unusually lenient. But these were extremely **good** smelling biscuits, and Madley did look especially fetching in her pinny, her eyes big and sorrowful and pathetic, and so the biscuits were almost gone by the time she reached Draco's side of the room.

"How's the sprog, Gregory?" she asked Goyle. 

He grabbed a meaty fistful of biscuits. "Doing well," he replied, mouth full. "Dumbledore's got it in his office, his phoenix is roosting on it."

"Splendid!" Madley beamed. "Is Pansy out of St. Mungo's yet?"

"Yeah, but she's still under sedation."

"I'm sure she'll be right as rain any day now," Madley said earnestly, then turned to Draco.

"Have a biscuit, ease my pain?" she said, proffering the platter.

"Why would I want to do that?" Draco drawled. "You turned me into a bird, Madley. And not even a bird that could fly. A totally useless, and utterly unattractive, bird."

"Oh, no, you were a very handsome dodo!" Madley protested. "Your feathers were nice and fluffy, with a very manly beak. All the girls noticed."

"They did?" Draco asked, interested, and reached for the platter before he realized what she was doing. "You shall not distract me," he snapped, shoving his wayward hand under the opposite arm. "Begone, biscuit-temptress.."

"But, Draco," she said, her pink bottom lip quivering appealingly as her hazel eyes filled with tears. "I'm really very, very s-sorry." 

"**How** sorry, exactly?" Draco asked slyly, his silver eyes narrowing in speculation.

"Very sorry indeed!" she replied instantly, then faltered. "I mean, not sorry enough to do, you know, **certain things**," she said meaningfully. "But sorry enough to run errands for you, or do your homework, or…"

"My homework? Madley, I would get better grades than you if all the classes were taught in Swahili, and I don't speak Swahili." Draco smirked at her. "And if I need errands run, I have Crabbe and Goyle for that."

"Well, what can I do to make it up to you?" she wailed. 

Draco thought a moment. "Well," he began, and she leaned forward eagerly, affording him an excellent glance down the front of her robes. _Not bad_. "As you'll have doubtless noticed, I have a bit of an entourage." He gestured at his hulking companions. "Amoung their number, until recently, was Pansy Parkinson."

Madley bowed her head in shame.

"I do not wish to have the male-female ratio of my entourage altered, and since it was by your actions that one cannot fulfill her duties, it falls to you to replace her."

She frowned. "Huh?"

Draco sighed. "You will take Parkinson's place in my merry band o' Slytherins."

"What does that entail, exactly?" Madley inquired humbly. "Because I'm terrible at foot-rubs."

"Foot rubs?" He looked at her, incredulous.

"It seems the sort of thing an entourage would do for its leader," she explained. "It's what I'd want **my** entourage to do."

Draco blinked, then continued. "It means that you'll join us for all meals and Hogsmeade trips, sit beside me in any classes we share, and support Slytherin at Quidditch matches. It **might**," he continued, "even mean that you'll be my date to the Valentine's ball, if Pansy hasn't recovered in time."

"For how long?" Madley whispered.

"Until Parkinson can stand to be around Goyle again." They both looked at him. He was stuffing the last biscuit into his maw, and his face and hands were smeared with melted chocolate and crumbs. He looked even less appealing than the giant squid, sex-appeal-wise. "It could take a while." 

"And this will make it up to you?" asked Laura doubtfully.

"You turned me into a bird, Madley," Draco replied coldly. "You turned a **Malfoy** into a **bird**. You cannot know the depths of my pain."

She sighed. "All right, then. I'll be one of your minions until Pansy is back to her old self."

"Parkinson is now an expectant—and unwed, I might add—mother of a dodo egg," Draco pointed out. "There's no going back from that."

There were silent for a moment, in recognition of the truth of his words. Then, "When will my penance begin?"

"No time like the present," Draco replied cheerfully. "Go make some more biscuits, Goyle ate them all and I didn't get any."

~~~

_Wednesday, 7:36 am, Great Hall_

There was cataclysmic shock the next day when Laura entered the hall for breakfast and failed to make her way to the Hufflepuff table _comme d'habitude_. Cheeks aflame, eyes resolutely downward, she stepped as unobtrusively as possible to where Draco Malfoy awaited her with his fellow Slytherins, patting the seat beside him and smiling very, very widely.

"Morning, Madley!" he said with almost offensive cheeriness. "Hope you're a morning person, because I certainly am."

One look round the immediate vicinity told Laura that his compatriots did not share his enthusiasm for early rising—they were all looking a bit rough around the edges. Goyle was yawning as he propped his head on one meaty fist as the other fed strips of bacon into his mouth two at a time, Bulstrode was blinking sleepy eyes and spreading porridge on her toast, Zabini merely stared fixedly at his cooling cup of tea, and Crabbe had simply laid his head down and was unashamedly snoring fit to beat the band. 

He was also, Laura was dismayed to observe, drooling onto the table. She slipped a muffin under his mouth to serve as a sponge and turned to Malfoy.

"I do all right in the mornings," she said hesitantly. "I probably like it the best of all times of day."

"Excellent! We shall get on like a house afire, then." 

"You seem rather optimistic about this whole thing, I must say," Laura ventured. "Aren't you horrified at the idea of enduring a Hufflepuff for… however long I'll be replacing Pansy?"

"Naw," Malfoy replied. "What's the worse that you'll be? Hopelessly stupid? I've had enough classes with Longbottom to be inured to that by now."

"Poor Neville," Laura sighed. She caught the Gryffindor's eye and smiled supportively at him, making him blush furiously and choke on his pumpkin juice.

"Oi, none of that," Malfoy snapped. "No fraternizing with the enemy."

"Fraternizing? Enemy?" she repeated, baffled. "Neville's not an enemy, he's a very sweet boy."

"Not while you're being Alterni-Pansy, he's not. As long as you're one of my minions, Neville Longbottom is the very antithesis of what is good and right in the world, and you will shun him like a leprous untouchable."

Laura gaped at him a moment before one of the words he'd used caught her attention. "Minion?" Her eyes narrowed. "Draco, I don't like the word 'minion'. It's… too evil." She shivered as Malfoy rolled his eyes. 

"You're my minion. Get over it."

"Shan't," she declared, and somehow managed to **flounce** whilst sitting down.

"Don't, then," he muttered, slanting a teasing glance at her. "I don't care how happy you are with your lot in life. Most minions aren't thrilled with their status, after all. 'Ceaseless joy' is pretty low in the list of job characteristics."

Laura giggled and asked, "How low?"  

"Under 'health benefits' and above 'possibility for advancement'. And those are right at the bottom." He shot another look at her and noticed she was watching him with a very curious expression, of amusement but also puzzlement.

"You're… not so bad, Draco," she said at last.

"You're too kind," he demurred with mocking graciousness, bowing in his seat. 

"Don't make fun of me," Laura said plaintively. "I'm trying to reach out, here."

"Don't reach too far," Malfoy advised. "Crabbe's soaked through his muffin."

Laura patiently exchanged a fresh crumpet for the soggy muffin. "Ugh," she said, to which Malfoy replied, "I see your 'ugh' and raise you an 'ew'."

"Now, where were we?" she asked after wiping her hands very fastidiously on a serviette.

"You were regaling me with how superb a human being I am," Malfoy supplied helpfully.

"I don't think I was," Laura said, frowning. "I think I was grudgingly admitting that you weren't as horrid a prat as most people think."

"Semantics." He waved his hand to indicate of how little consequence it was. "Point is, you're shocked at how easy it can be to spend time with me."

"Well, yes."

"I have two things to say to that." He patted his lips with his serviette and turned to face her. "Firstly, as Alterni-Pansy, you are part of the exclusive clique that **is** the sixth year Slyths, and as such, entitled to all the perks and advantages thereof. Meaning, I treat you with less cruelty, mockery, and open hostility than the rest of this lot of wankers." Malfoy gave another wave, this one encompassing the whole of the Great Hall.

"Lastly, you'd best remember that a few pleasant moments at the beginning of our little affiliation do not constitute a window to my soul. I'm not some misunderstood spoiled rich boy, just waiting for someone to get to know the 'real me'." Malfoy looked like he wanted to be sick at the very idea. "That's just as two-dimensional an idea as the legends of me being a malicious, purely evil twat with naught on my mind but mayhem and chaos."

He'd said all this with a perfectly bland expression, his tone perfectly bland, but Laura felt a chill shiver its way up her back nonetheless. 

"Oh, dear," she murmured. "I'm entirely out of my league on this one, aren't I?"

"That you are, little badger," he replied with an angelic smile. "Now, if you're done, pull Crabbe away from his crumpet and let's get to Transfigurations, you know how cranky McGonagall is if we're late."


	3. Chapter 3

Lonely Reign, Part 3

_Wednesday, 12:24 pm, Great Hall_

At lunch, Laura endeavored to become better acquainted with her new companions. It hadn't taken much to convert Goyle and Crabbe to being kindly disposed to her; she'd always been nice to them, as one was nice to one's mildly retarded neighbour or cousin, and was pretty besides.

Zabini and Bulstrode, on the other hand, were neither mildly retarded nor unduly susceptible to a pretty face, and thus were harder nuts to crack, as it were.

"From where in Italy does your family come, Blaise?" she inquired politely over her slice of steak and kidney pie at lunch.

He looked startled for a moment, and then suspicious. "Why do you want to know?"

Laura laughed. "You act like no one's ever asked you before," she said, and then realized that the others didn't seem amused. "Hasn't anyone ever asked you before?"

"Never mind," Blaise snapped sulkily. "Why do you want to know?"

"Because I love Italy," she replied honestly. "My family spends a month there for the summer hols every year, in a villa in Tuscany."

"My family's from Tuscany," Blaise admitted. "A little town named Guardistallo."

"Not Guardistallo, near Livorno?" 

"Yes, you know of it?"

"Of course! Our villa is in Tirrenia, not 35 kilometres away. Guardistallo is a lovely place, we market there every Thursday morning." Laura grinned. "Speaking of food, it must be terribly boring to eat British all the time."

Blaise rolled his eyes. "It is. Some days I think I'll die if I don't have some oregano or a bit of olive oil."

"You could ask the kitchen elves…" she suggested.

"No, he couldn't," Malfoy interrupted. "They **hate** Slytherins."

"But they **love** Hufflepuffs," replied Laura with a serene smile. "I'm sure I could talk them into it." She bit thoughtfully into a roll. "We could have a picnic by the lake!"

The Slytherins did not reply immediately. "Madley," said Malfoy eventually, "you **do** realize that it's almost December, correct?"

"So?"

"And that it's twenty degrees?" added Blaise.

"So?"

"And that there's a foot of snow on the ground?" supplimented Millicent.

Laura frowned. "Defeatist attitudes!" she exclaimed. "I thought you lot were the ambitious ones of Hogwarts!"

"We're ambitious," piped the unfortunate Crabbe, who with his rumpled hair, askew tie, and turned-up collar looked anything but ambitious. 

"We just don't wanna get cold bums, sitting on the ground," explained Goyle.

 "So, we place a water-repellent charm on the blanket we sit on, and a warming charm on the ground and the air!" She rolled her eyes at them. "Honestly! Please do try to remember that we're magical?"

Draco tossed his serviette onto his plate in disgust. "Ok, it's painfully clear that the polite way won't get anywhere with Madley," he said, ignoring her snort of "Polite?". "What we're trying to say is that picnics are stupid, and we don't care if it's high summer, we don't want to participate in one."

He surveyed the faces around him, faces grim with determination to avoid such a thing at all costs. "And that, as they say, is that."

~~~

_Thursday, 12.09 pm, lawn outside Hogwarts castle_

Laura removed a crusty loaf of bread and a small jug of gold-green olive oil from the hamper and handed them to Draco, who sat cross-legged on the other side of the red-checked cloth spread under a tree not far from the ice-glazed lake. 

"There, that's the last of it," she said, surveying the feast she'd laid out before them. Aside from the aforementioned bread and olive oil, there was a platter of ham and melon bruschette, fat slices of mozzarella, tiny meatballs, stuffed grilled tomatoes, and for dessert, a massive chestnut cream cake which she'd placed behind her so Crabbe's exploring fingers couldn't wreak havoc with its carefully frosted surface before the moment of its presentation. She'd also managed to obtain…

"Wine?" Draco said, incredulous. "Where did you get your hands on a bottle of wine?"

"Bottles," she corrected with a grin. "One white, one red."

"And I repeat, where did you get the wine?"

But Laura only smiled mysteriously. "I told you that the kitchen elves love Hufflepuffs." Handing the wine to him, she said, "Be a dear and open the white, will you, Draco?"

Blaise took the plate of mozzarella and expertly drizzled it with olive oil, salt, pepper, and oregano. He breathed deeply of its aromas before passing the plate round. 

"These ham things are brilliant," Crabbe mumbled around a mouthful, reaching for another.

"Well, save some for the rest of us," Draco snapped, slapping a glass of wine into the boy's hand. Some sloshed onto Crabbe's wrist, and Laura looked sternly at Draco.

He glared fiercely at her and popped a meatball in his mouth, chewing thoughtfully. Draco was **not** pleased about this development. Somehow they'd gone from his explicit decree that they would **not** have a picnic in the snow, to doing just that, and it had all happened so quickly and subtly he was completely unsure how it'd come about. 

Draco thought it might have had something to do with Laura simply arranging for the picnic anyway, and luring Blaise, Crabbe, and Goyle to the idea with promises of culinary delights. Millicent went along out of the morbid curiosity of one who can't wait to see who'll throw the first punch, and Draco… well, he'd simply been outnumbered by four shining faces and one darkly amused one.

Laura handed him a grilled stuffed tomato. He frowned at her. She raised her eyebrows and smiled innocently. He frowned again, and sipped his wine. 

"We've an audience," Millicent said in her most unfortunately growly voice, and Draco turned to see that they had, indeed, attracted a crowd.

"Oh, dear," Laura lamented. "There's not enough for everyone."

"We're Slytherins," Blaise pointed out helpfully. "We don't share."

"Oh." Her brows drew together in thought, and she withdrew her wand from her robes, causing her companions to shy away in terror. "Babies," she teased. "I'm not going to hurt you."

"That's what you thought last time, too," Draco said. "And look how well **that** turned out." He gestured expansively with his wineglass at their surroundings, as if they were crammed into a cell at Azkaban and two minutes from a Dementor-frenching.

Laura ignored him with a sniff and waved her wand over the bruschetti, saying, "_Duplicato Infinito_," then got gracefully to her feet and approached the huddle of curious students closer to the castle. 

"Hullo," they heard her say. "Care for a snack?" All she lacked was the pinny. When everyone had been served to their satisfaction from the never-ending plate of finger-food, she returned and handed the plate to Goyle and Crabbe, who eagerly took advantage of it.

Draco, Millicent, and Blaise simply stared at her. "Who'd like cake?" she asked serenely, producing it from behind her and brandishing a knife.

~~~

_Friday, 5.48 pm, Great Hall_

It took Laura more than a taste of home or a full stomach to get on Millicent's good side, but she was patient, determined, and diligent—in a word, Hufflepuff. 

"Hannah and Susan and I are going to have a girls' night, Mil," she said carefully at dinner. "We'd love for you to join us."

Millicent frowned at the casual and unsolicited nickname, peering with suspicion at Laura, over whom she towered by 6 inches and a good three stone of admittedly solid weight. "I could go as a way of investigating Hufflepuff's dorms," she said to Draco later.

He thought it a fine idea. "Bring a camera," Draco instructed. "Take plenty of snaps, especially after they change into their shorty pajamas. And hopefully during the pillow fight."

The younger Hufflepuff students stared, stricken, when Laura led Millicent into the common room. "Miilicent's here!" she exclaimed cheerfully, as if they hadn't all just yelped in terror and shock. "We'll just be in the sixth year room with Sue and Hannah, if anyone needs us."

The Hufflepuffs in the common room could not think of a **single** reason any of them could possibly have need of Millicent Bulstrode, or any other Slytherin, for that matter, but wisely remained silent.

Millicent followed the smaller girl up the stairs, surveying her surrounding with an air of deep mistrust. She was used to Slytherin's dungeon dorms with their dank, windowless walls and green-and-silver decorations. Hufflepuff Central, however, had enormous windows with yellow silk drapes, and airy fan-vaulted ceilings, and everything was so fresh and welcoming. 

Being neither of those things, she felt very out of place indeed.

"We're here!" Laura announced, flinging wide the door to the dormitory to reveal Hannah Abbott on one bed and Susan Bones on another. 

"Hi, Millicent," Susan said indolently. She was lounging on her belly, flipping through the latest **Teen Witch**.

"Glad you could join us, Millicent," said Hannah, and stood to give the Slytherin a brief and extremely surprising hug before turning to Laura and bestowing the same on her. 

"So, what shall we do tonight?" Laura asked.

"Well," Hannah began excitedly, bouncing a little on the balls of her tiny feet, "I thought we could try some new hairstyles—Mum owled me a book of coiffure charms—and Sue said she had a whole new set of nail lacquer, we could do each other's nails…"

"I want to hear about that picnic," Susan mentioned from the bed.

"Millicent's on the Slytherin Quidditch team," Laura began. "And since Susan just made chaser for Hufflepuff, I was wondering if you could give us some pointers on how to handle being the only girl on a team?" She looked hopefully up at Millicent, who felt her steely reserve bending. Just a little.

"Maybe," she conceded, and allowed herself to be pushed gently to Laura's bed and presented with a tray of nail lacquer bottles from which to choose.


	4. Chapter 4

Lonely Reign, Part 4

_Friday, 11.34 pm, 6th year Hufflepuff's girls' dorm_

"Oh, Millicent," breathed Hannah. "You're… you're…"

"Millicent, you're beautiful," Susan finished.

And she was. After straightening and altering the blunt-cut pageboy Millicent had sported since her second year, her blue-black hair framed her face most flatteringly, emphasizing her crystalline blue eyes and high cheekbones while minimizing her rather strong, square jaw. 

She'd thought sitting through the eyebrow plucking, mustache waxing, mascara wand jabbing, and every other form of beauty-related torture the Hufflepuffs had put her through would send her into a towering rage, but one look at the new and improved **her** in the mirror (which gave a piercing wolf-whistle) had made her admit that it had all, in fact, been well worth it.

They'd all changed into their shorty pajamas hours ago, earning Millicent her first gasps of shock from the Hufflepuffs.

"Wow," Laura said. It was fairly obvious that Millicent was a big girl, tall and strong, but what was not public knowledge was that she was an absolute **Amazon**—meaning, possessing of lithe, muscled limbs and the breasts and hips of a goddess.

"Those robes have a lot to answer for," commented Hannah. "I can't believe they've been hiding **that** all these years."

"Haven't had it all these years," Millicent said gruffly. "Was flat as a board until last year."

Even in her shorty pajamas, with her long legs and new hair-do and thin eyebrows and careful cosmetics and expression of grudging, reluctant happiness, Millicent looked like a warrior princess. 

"I think this calls for a celebration," Susan said. "You know what that means!"

"Kitchen raid!" chorused Hannah and Laura, and the Hufflepuffs scrambled to put on their house slippers.

"Won't we get caught?" Millicent asked, feeling the need for at least a token protest.

"We might," Laura conceded. "But everyone but Snape likes Hufflepuffs, and Snape likes **you**, so we should be ok."

Millicent nodded. She was hungry, anyway.

They snuck out of Hufflepuff. Millicent took the lead, looking rather pantherish as she slinked down hallways and along corridors, darting down staircases and expertly avoiding missing steps. Once they arrived at the painting guarding the door to the kitchen, Susan tickled the pear and they slipped inside.

Filling their arms with sandwiches, bottles of butterbeer and pumpkin juice, and a mountain of chocolate éclairs, they left the kitchen. Coming to a stair landing, Millicent said, "If we went down _these_ steps," she nodded in one direction, "rather than up _those_," she nodded in the other, "we'd come right to the Slytherin rooms."

It was her way of offering to show them where she lived, and after a brief, wordless conference the Hufflepuff girls agreed. "Veni, vidi, vici," Millicent whispered as the others pretended not to listen for the password. 

The common room was deserted. "Let's eat here!" Hannah suggested.

"But we could get caught!" Susan protested.

"That's the fun of it," Hannah said, dimpling, and they spread out their spoils on the coffee table, sitting around it on the floor.

They were able to keep their voices to low whispers while they were eating and just drinking pumpkin juice, but once they started on the butterbeer discretion began to be forgotten. 

"…And so that's when I accused him of being a vampire!" Susan said with a giggle.

"You didn't!" exclaimed Laura. 

"Oh, Sue, how could you?" Hannah asked sorrowfully. "The poor boy."

"Not my fault his hands were so bloody cold!" Susan replied, adding merrily, "My nipples were hard for a week after that! Thank Merlin for baggy robes!"

"Thank Merlin, indeed," drawled a voice from the direction of the stairs to the dormitories. The dim light from the wall torches revealed Draco Malfoy standing there, forearm resting casually against the doorjamb. He wore black flannel pajama bottoms and nothing else.

The girls leapt to their feet, gasping in shock. 

"Bulstrode, is that you?" he demanded, striding toward them. "Bloody hell, woman, you **do** have a bosom! Wherever have you been hiding it?"

Millicent's blush could even be seen in the semi-darkness. "Baggy robes," she mumbled, staring at Draco's bare feet.

He tilted her head up with a finger on her chin, and smiled. "Well done, Bulstrode." 

She smiled back. It was always good to receive approval from one's liege, after all.

Draco's gaze roamed over the other three appreciatively, and then he dropped into a plump black leather couch, plucking the last éclair from the table. "So," he began, motioning languidly for them to be seated. "To what does Slytherin owe this honour?"

"Millicent just wanted to show us your common room," Hannah said breathlessly, her eyes glued to Draco's naked chest. "I'm very, very glad she did."

"Me, too," Susan agreed with fervour. 

Draco smirked, "The common room has never before been so appreciated," he said dryly. "And you, Madley? Are you glad to be here, as well?"

"Bit draughty," she replied, looking around. "Bit gloomy. Bit damp."

"But it's home," he finished, and grinned naughtily at her. In the torchlight, her hair looked like gilded bronze and those pajamas really were indecently short, and made of some sinfully soft cotton fabric that clung in most appealing ways… 

Draco blinked away the thought, and finished his éclair, then snagged Hannah's half-finished bottle of butterbeer. "Is this the culprit behind the racket that woke me from my admittedly unnecessary beauty sleep?"

They had the grace to look somewhat abashed (although on Millicent, it merely looked vaguely constipated). Hannah and Susan rushed to apologize.

"Would you like me to sing you to sleep, Draco?" Susan asked, while Hannah offered to stroke his hair in a soothing manner.

"Ease up, you pair of slags," Laura said affectionately, laughing. "You'll break the poor boy."

The poor boy raised a silvery brow, looking deeply offended. "They'll be building snowmen in hell the day I can't handle myself with two Hufflepuffs," he told her, scowling when she only laughed harder.

"Of course, Draco dear," she replied, and patted his hand.

"Don't patronize me," he hissed, his hand a pale blur as he grabbed her wrist. His eyes were mere silver slits as they bored into hers.

"Uh-oh," Hannah squeaked. "Time to go."

"We'll just be waiting in the hallway," said Susan. Millicent peered at Draco a moment, seeming satisfied he wouldn't actually **kill** Laura, and followed behind them.

Laura's heart was beating very fast, and she couldn't decide whether it was from fear or… something else. Draco's breath was warm on her cheek, sweet and chocolate-scented from the éclair, and his chest was like carved ivory, pale and smooth in the flickering orange-gold light. 

"Draco," she said, and was proud her voice had only a barely noticeable quaver, "you're hurting me."

His grip slackened, but he didn't release her. "It's been less than a week, and you've been flouting my authority with the others entirely too often for my pleasure."

"I… have?" She searched frantically through the past few days for incidents when she'd spoken or acted against him. There was the picnic, granted, and then she'd… and… "Oh."

"Yes, 'oh'." He pulled gently on her arm, and she was forced to sit beside him or tumble across his lap. "In Slytherin, reputation and standing are everything. Everything, Madley," he emphasized. "Every time you go against what I say, it makes me lose face in front of the rest of them."

"Why does that matter?" she wanted to know, staring at him.

He looked at her in disbelief that she could be so naïve. 

"I **am** a Hufflepuff," she reminded him dryly, and he nodded.

"Slyths only respect the one on top. And without that respect, there's no telling what can happen to you. There are forces at work in this house you can't begin to imagine, Madley."

He leaned forward, gaze almost caressing as it flicked over her features. "I've been the Slytherin Prince for the past six years, and I plan on being the reigning monarch for the remaining time I have here. You will not interfere with this. Do you understand me?"

"Draco, you're not actually a prince," Laura said softly. She looked quite frightened.

He brushed this aside like a mere mosquito. "When everyone accords you _droit de seigneur_, you're anything you want to be." Slowly, insultingly, he released her wrist and tucked an errant strand of hair behind her ear. "Now, _mignonne_, go to your friends waiting so patiently in the hallway and return to _casa_ Hufflepuff."

Laura's courage deserted her, and she bolted from the room without a backward glance. 

"Everything ok?" Susan asked while Hannah looked her over for evidence of broken bones. Millicent just raised an eyebrow.

"As ok as it ever is with him," Laura said, shivering. "Let's go."


	5. Chapter 5

Lonely Reign, Part 5

_Monday, 7.18 am, Great Hall_

The next Monday at breakfast, Dumbledore announced that there would be a Yule Ball the week before the Christmas holidays commenced. Almost immediately, Millicent was besieged with invitations while Laura beamed like a proud mother. To a man, Millicent thanked them with gruff politeness and said she'd let them know.

"D'you think that counts as an invitation?" Laura asked Millicent between classes, gesturing toward Neville Longbottom who was staring witlessly at the tall Slytherin girl. "Go Millicent! You've reduced the boy to a gibbering idiot."

"Like there was any challenge to **that**," Draco said. "He's halfway to being lobotomized at any given moment."

"Poor boy," Laura and Millicent said in unison, and Millicent turned a flattering shade of pink as she looked at Draco, horrified at what she'd done. 

"Bulstrode, **do** try not to turn into a Hufflepuff, won't you?" he drawled. "Bad enough we've got one loitering round as it is."

Laura frowned at him. "I'm not loitering." He only smirked. "**You** are the one who wanted me to hang round with you lot in the first place."

He lifted an elegant silvery brow. "Is that how you see it?"

Laura frowned again, positive he knew something she didn't and **hating** the feeling. She decided to quit while she was ahead and slumped a little in her seat, pouting.

"Laura?" asked a voice behind her, and she turned to see Roger Davies, seventh year Ravenclaw.

"Hi, Roger," she greeted him, ignoring the glares of death her companions focused upon him.

"I was wondering if you'd like to go to the Yule Ball with me," he asked, resolutely keeping his eyes fixed on her face. 

Laura thought a moment. She was unlikely to receive any other invitations with Draco and the others looming over her like the children of the night, and Roger **was** very good-looking, and seemed nice enough… 'Yes, Roger, thank you. I'd like that," she said with a big smile. She felt Draco tense beside her and wondered what she'd done wrong **now**. 

"Brilliant!" he said, his face relaxing into a delighted smile. 

"She'll have to let you know, Davies," Draco said, his tone and expression deceptively lazy. "She'll get back to you."

Roger blinked and stood there dumbly until Goyle lumbered forward a step and began cracking his knuckles. "Er, I'll just go away now, shall I?"

"Good idea," Draco murmured as Roger scuttled away before turning back to his companions. "Can you believe the bloody cheek?"

"Have to give him credit," commented Blaise. "No one else has dared."

Laura sighed. "You're ruining my social life."

Draco rolled his eyes. "Believe me, the calibre of your acquaintances has only improved since you began going round with us."

She wasn't convinced, but decided to pursue a different matter. "Why did you get all tense when I accepted Roger's invitation?"

He didn't answer, but looked at Millicent. "Draco decides who's the best date for us," the girl explained. "That's why I haven't answered any of the boys who've asked me. He'll think it over and tell me."

"For the good of the kingdom, like an arranged marriage?" Laura asked teasingly to hide her dismay. 

Draco shrugged, the motion impossibly elegant. "That, and the good of the Slytherin. I want my people to have the best possible time. I'm an excellent judge of character, and I can tell if it will be a match made in heaven or hell."

She crossed her arms over her chest and quirked a brow at him. "And is Roger an angel or a devil?"

He only smiled at her, a slow mysterious smile that made her stomach quiver. 

"I… I have to get to Charms," Laura said faintly, and **ran** down the corridor.

~~~

_3rd week of December (Tuesday), 5.53 pm, Great Hall_

It was a week before the Yule Ball, and Draco still hadn't rendered his decision about Roger's invitation to Laura. 

"Um, Draco?" she ventured at dinner one evening. "I really need to know if I can go with Roger… I have to get dress robes…"

"Oh, are you still on about that?" he replied. "Well, you're not going with him."

Laura sighed, feeling distinctly unhappy, and stood. 

"Where are you going?" Blaise asked around a mouthful of shepherd's pie.

"To tell Roger I can't go," she answered, eyes wide and startled.

"Oh, let me," Draco said, his grin making Laura quite nervous. 

"Oh, I don't know…" she began but he was already striding across the hall toward Ravenclaw. She darted after him.

"Oi, Davies," Draco said. Roger and the rest of Ravenclaw turned to face him. 

"Malfoy," Roger acknowledged with a nod, then smiled at Laura, who was peeping over Draco's shoulder and wringing her hands.

"Miss Madley greatly appreciates the honour of your invitation, but sadly regrets she will be unable to accept."

Roger seemed to deflate a little. "Oh. Okay." He glanced at Laura. "Maybe next time?"

She smiled at him but Draco answered for her. "Hm, yes, maybe." His tone didn't inspire much hope.

"Who will she be going with?" Roger dared to ask as Draco turned away.

Draco looked back over his shoulder, a sly smile on his lips. "Me." And he sauntered back to the Slytherin table, leaving Laura standing frozen in the aisle, her hands in mid-wring, until she snapped out of her surprised stupor and shakily followed him.

"I… will?"

"You're becoming as incoherent as Longbottom, Madley," Draco told her, not looking at her as he buttered a roll. "Be so kind as to speak in complete sentences, will you?"

"I'm going with you?"

"You are."

"Why?"

He grinned at her over his goblet of pumpkin juice. "I'd have gone with Pansy if she weren't still at home, catatonic in bed. As Alterna-Pansy, it's your duty."

She sighed. "You are **ruining** my social life."

~~~

_Friday, 6.03 pm, 6th year Slytherins' girls' dorm_

The afternoon of the Yule Ball, Laura joined Millicent in the sixth year girls' dorm in Slytherin to prepare for the evening ahead. As Millicent and Pansy were the only girls in that year, and Pansy was still recuperating from her ordeal at home, Millicent had the entire room to herself.

"Wear Slytherin colours," was the only guideline Draco had given Laura for selecting her dress robes. She had chosen a gown of silver-grey lace, with a wide, round neckline, long tight sleeves, and snug bodice that flared at her hips into a full skirt. It was very plain, almost medieval in its simplicity, and she thought it suited her very nicely.

Millicent nodded in approval, which was her equivalent of Hannah's and Susan's excited hour-long ramblings of excitement, and Laura felt a pang of loneliness for her friends. This would be the first time in years the three of them weren't together for this all-important primping session, dashing in and out of the bathroom, doing each other's hair, shrieking in dismay when time began to run out…

But it wasn't bad, she thought. Millicent was positively taciturn, but pleasant enough, and her rare comments were usually both intelligent and amusingly snide. Laura liked her.

She liked Blaise too, even if he was the most suspicious boy she'd ever met. She even liked Crabbe and Goyle. Crabbe was rather puppy-like in his benign stupidity, and Goyle was touchingly proud about his egg, always discussing its progress (though how he could tell anything had changed was beyond her).

Draco, though—he was a mystery. She couldn't decide if she liked him or not, mostly because she couldn't decided if **he** liked **her** or not. One moment he was jovial, fun, almost solicitous; the next, he could be biting and sarcastic and absolutely cruel. He ruled his realm with an iron hand, and permitted no one to pretend to the throne.

And he was her date for the ball. She was determined to look good and have a smashing time, no matter whose arm she had to cling to the entire time, and with that in mind, she turned resolutely to Millicent.

"Let's do your hair, shall we?"

Millicent had, at Laura's suggestion, chosen to emphasize her extraordinary build by wearing a rather Grecian-looking gown of soft silk the same colour as her eyes, belted with a silver cord crossing and crisscrossing over her midriff. Laura pulled the girl's midnight-dark hair into an upsweep and coaxed a few long curls to cascade down over one shoulder. 

"You look amazing," she told Millicent admiringly. "Roarke is a very lucky boy."

Draco had allowed Millicent to accept Roarke Montague's invitation. He was a handsome seventh year Slytherin with golden hair and brown eyes, the perfect counterpoint for Millicent's dark, pale-eyed beauty, and if they weren't chosen king and queen of the ball it would be a crime, Laura confided in the girl.

"Time to go," was all Millicent said, but blushed prettily. "Wait," she said when Laura stepped to the door. "I have something to lend you." She rummaged through a leather jewellery case and came up with a whisper-fine silver chain from which was suspended an emerald the size of Laura's thumbnail. The emerald was surrounded by pearls and glittered like a deep green star.

"Oh, Merlin," Laura breathed. "Millicent, I can't possibly…"

"Turn around and lift your hair," Millicent interrupted, and Laura complied, shivering a little at the cool touch of silver and gemstone against the bare skin of her throat. "There's earrings too."

Laura gazed at herself in the mirror and blinked back tears at the girl's kindness. "Thank you, Millicent. You're lovely." And she impulsively hugged and kissed the girl in gratitude.

"Hm, perhaps you two would prefer to go with each other?" asked Draco's dry voice from the door. Laura whipped around, her eyes wide and startled.

"Draco!" she exclaimed. "Millicent just lent me this gorgeous necklace! Isn't she the nicest person **ever**?" She rushed across the room, pointing to her throat. "Isn't it **amazing**?"

His silver gaze flickered only momentarily at the necklace before flowing languidly over the rest of her. "Amazing," he agreed, but Laura was left with the thought that he wasn't really talking about the jewellery…

Before she could think further on it, thought, he was extending his elbows to them. "Let's get a move on, ladies," he said. "Roarke won't stay pretty forever."


	6. Chapter 6

Lonely Reign, Part 6

_Friday, 10.14 pm, Great Hall_

The feast was delicious, and Draco was an exceptional dancer. He was in a good mood, and in top form—Laura couldn't remember when she'd last laughed so hard. 

"Are you having a good time?" Hannah asked when she, Susan, and Laura managed to find a moment to speak together.

"Surprisingly, yes," Laura admitted. 

"Is it true that Crabbe and Goyle are each other's dates?" Susan asked, sending the three girls into a flurry of giggles. 

"Of course not," Laura replied, but couldn't prevent a grin. "They just couldn't get anyone to go with them, so they came alone… together."

"Like Harry and Ron and Hermione," Hannah said, and they looked across the room to regard Gryffindor's 'dream team' as Draco scathingly called them. Ron's swooping arm movements showed him to be demonstrating some elaborate Quidditch move to Harry, who was watching carefully and nodding. Hermione stood beside them sipping a cup of punch and looking distinctly out of sorts.

"Let's go over there and rescue Hermione before she damages them," Susan suggested. "Wouldn't want the poor boys to be bruised."

"Heavens, no," Hannah agreed, and they started over but were impeded by the arrival of Roger Davies.

"Hi, Laura," he said to her, smiling. "You look spiffing."

"Thanks, Roger. You look very good, too." 

"Care for a stroll in the rose garden?"

It **was** a bit stuffy in the hall, and she still felt bad about turning down his invitation. "I'd love to," she accepted, and took his arm. "Let's leave quickly," she whispered as they made their way to the doors. "Draco might stop us if he sees."

Roger shot her a grin and sped them outside.

"Oh, it's lovely here," Laura exclaimed. The area had been enchanted to be warm, and the perfume from the roses wafted around them in a heady cloud while fairy lights sparkled through the bushes. Roger steered her around a corner to a darker area with a bench, sitting and patted the seat beside him.

She smiled shyly as she sat, looking down, and he kissed her hand. ""Not as lovely as you." He reached an arm around her shoulders, pulling her against his chest, and kissed her.

At first he was gentle, his lips merely moving over hers, but quickly became more enthusiastic, forcing her mouth open to plunge his tongue inside.

"Uh, Roger…" Laura protested weakly. "That's enough."

"Never enough," he said thickly, covering her body with his and pressing her back against the bench while his hand roughly grabbed at her lace-covered breast. 

"Ow! Roger, stop!" Laura said as he squeezed her quite hard. 

His fingers found her nipple and pinched it viciously. "You taste so good, Laura," he muttered, trailing kisses down her throat before shoving his hand up her skirts. "Oh, and you feel good too," he groaned, and shoving his hand into her knickers.

"Roger! Stop!" she shrieked as his clumsy fingers mauled her, then screaming in pain when he jammed a finger roughly into her.

Then he was gone, flying through the air to land in a heap on the crushed gravel path, and Draco was standing over her like an avenging angel. His hair was mussed, and his face… his face was a terrible, beautiful sight to behold.

"Cover yourself," he said, his voice tight, and Laura scrambled to obey, smoothing her skirt with trembling fingers. 

Draco swept cold, cold eyes over Roger's rumpled form before bending to sweep Laura into his arms and striding away. Ignoring the curious glances of those around them, he carried her all the way to the dungeons, through the Slytherin common room, to Millicent's dorm.

Laura shivered in his arms, her face buried against his neck until he deposited her on Pansy's bed. 

"Do you want to see Pomfrey?" he asked. 

She shook her head. "Too embarrassed," she mumbled.

He cocked his head to the side. "Are you hurt?" Laura nodded slowly. "Show me." His face showed nothing but remote concern, and she slowly peeled the shoulder of her gown away to reveal her right breast. It was mottled with bruises, and the nipple was very swollen. Draco flicked his wand over her and the bruises disappeared. Laura sighed in relief as the swelling reduced dramatically.

"Anywhere else?" he asked calmly.

Laura felt her cheeks burn furiously, and she studied the pattern of her lace dress, tracing it with her fingertip while nodding. "I think… I may be bleeding," she ventured.

"Will you let me look?"

She looked at him, looked into his eyes, and saw nothing there but cool, almost clinical interest. "All right," she murmured.

He lifted her skirts and pulled away the remaining shred of her knickers. Bruises were already showing, like ugly blue flowers, on the tender skin of her thighs. "I have to… look more," he told her. She nodded, and he carefully parted her.

Her flesh was enflamed and red, there was at least one crescent-shaped wound where Roger's fingernail had bitten into her, and there was a tiny, jagged flap of skin that oozed a trickle of blood. With a wave of his wand and some whispered words, he healed her carefully.

Sitting back on his heels, satisfied she was in no more pain, he looked up at her pale, strained face and then bent close to her again. 

"Draco!" she exclaimed at the first touch of his mouth on her. "What are you doing?"

He slid his tongue sinuously over her clitoris, making her gasp, before glancing up. "Giving you a good memory to replace the bad," he replied, and fluttered his tongue between her fragile inner lips.

"Oh, Merlin," Laura groaned, falling back on the bed as waves of pleasure assaulted her. It took almost no time at all before she was undulating her pelvis to meet his talented mouth, soft cries escaping her until she peaked with a sharp, strangled cry.

Draco sat back again, licking his lips and arranging her skirts neatly over her legs once more. "Feeling better?"

Laura smiled lazily at him. "Oh, yes, indeed."

He smirked. "Excellent." Then he became serious again. "You realize that you are no longer, officially at least, a virgin."

She sobered, the post-orgasmic euphoria leaving her abruptly, and looked away. "I know."

His hand dropped to her shoulder briefly. "Not as bad as it seems, Madley," he told her. "Could have been worse."

"I know," she replied softly, and covered his hand with hers, squeezing it in gratitude. "Thank you so much, Draco. If you hadn't come when you had…"

"There was a reason I didn't want you go with Davies," he interrupted her. "I did a little research. He's been a naughty boy, he has." Draco was glaring at her fiercely, his eyes blazing. "I refused him so you wouldn't have to endure his unwanted attentions."

"I should have listened to you," Laura whispered. "I thought you were only doing it because…"

"Because I'm an imperious bastard who likes to play with the lives of those around me?" She nodded dumbly, and he smirked. "Well, I am, so it's no surprise that you'd think that." Then he leaned forward, so close she could smell the faint scent of herself on his breath, and shivered. "But whatever my motives, you are to obey me. Is that clear?"

It galled her, but she agreed. 

The door thumped open then, and Millicent stood there, eyes narrowed. "What happened?"

"Madley's staying here tonight," Draco informed his housemate. "Get her settled, then join me in the common room. Are the others here?" She nodded. "Very good." He left.

Millicent provided Laura with pajamas that were vastly too big for her and a new toothbrush before going downstairs, not saying a word. Laura was content to leave it that way, too, and sank with relief into Pansy's bed. She was asleep almost immediately.

~~~

On Monday after the Yule Ball, the school was abuzz with the news that Blaise Zabini had beat the stuffing out of Roger Davies. Both boys were interrogated, but Blaise protested his innocence (he had, after all, four witnesses to attest to his continued presence) and Roger refused to name his assailant so there was nothing to be done but send him to the infirmary to be healed.

On Tuesday word got around that Vincent Crabbe had pummeled Roger Davies into the ground, but it couldn't be proven and Roger wasn't talking.

Wednesday, everyone was whispering about how Gregory Goyle had broken both of Roger Davies' arms and smashed his face in. No witnesses stepped forward, and this time, Roger **couldn't** talk, so the perpetrator remained a mystery.

On Thursday, Millicent Bulstrode was observed favoring her right hand and rubbing her knee around the same time that Roger Davies was being treated for a broken nose and ruptured testicle by Madam Pomfrey. 

Friday morning, Roger was carried to the infirmary with blood soaking through his shirt. Apparently, someone had carved something into his chest, but exactly what it was remained a mystery. Also a mystery was the reason behind Draco Malfoy's light step and happy smile the rest of the day.

Laura Madley, who everyone had believed to be associating with the Slytherins only under duress, cried and hugged them all goodbye with great enthusiasm at King's Cross Station. Blaise, Vincent, and Gregory submitted with patient humour, Millicent surprised everyone by hugging the Hufflepuff back and sniffling a little herself, and Draco held himself quite stiffly and peeled her away as soon as possible.

In all, a very peculiar week.


	7. Chapter 7

Lonely Reign, Part 7

_Saturday, first Quidditch match after the winter break (Gryffindor/Slytherin)_

The sight of a lone gold-and-black muffler amid the sea of green-and-silver masses in Slytherin's area of the Quidditch stands was not so startling now, halfway through the season, as it had been a month ago. 

"Yay Millicent!" Laura shouted as the girl blocked the Quaffle and thwarted Gryffindor's attempt to score, then jumped up, gasping in horror, as a Gryffindor beater sent a bludger hurtling at Blaise, one of the Slytherin chasers. "Blaise, watch out!" Roarke Montague sat next to her, laughing helplessly. _She really was more amusing to watch than the game_, he thought. 

Then both Draco and Harry Potter spotted the snitch and made a break for it. They flew neck and neck, jostling each other for it, hands outstretched, and suddenly Potter hauled off and **slammed** Draco in the shoulder, throwing the boy not only off course but off his broom entirely. Potter's catch of the snitch went unremarked as Draco tumbled to the ground, landing with a thud on the sand.

"Draco!" Laura screamed, and began to shove her way out of the stands.

Draco heard his voice called dimly and shook his head to clear it, then was very sorry when his stomach heaved mightily. _Ah, a concussion_, he thought, and let darkness overcome him. He came back to himself to find he was on a stretcher and Madam Pomfrey fussing over him and a flash of black-and-gold was streaking by him. 

"Harry!" shouted Laura, her voice shrill with worry and anger. "Harry, what a **terrible** thing to do."

_This could be good_, Draco thought, and ignored his sore ribs and thick head to roll onto his stomach so he could watch the proceedings. 

"You should be ashamed of yourself, Harry Potter," Laura told him, waggling her finger in his sweaty face. "That's no way to play Quidditch. I know Draco can't help cheating—he's got this little morality problem, you see—but you should know better!"

_Hey_, Draco protested silently, offended. _I do not have a problem with morality. **It** has problems with **me**._

"But… Laura," Potter said helplessly, stepping back, but she would not be denied.

"What would you have done if he'd died, Harry?" she asked, stepping right into his face. "You would have been a **murderer**." Their noses were almost touching, and Draco was feeling distinctly unhappy about their proximity. She gazed up at Potter sadly. "I expected so much more from you, Harry."

"Wibble," Potter replied, and kissed her. Her arms flailed for a second, and then she recovered and wrapped one around his waist, the other winding sinuously about his neck.

"That's so romantic," sighed Millicent, and leaned against Roarke, who smiled down at her.

"That's disgusting," snapped Hermione, who'd just run up.

Draco blinked. That could **not** be happening. Potter was **not** kissing Laura, Draco's… uh, minion… right there in the middle of the crowded Quidditch pitch. "Oi!" he shouted. "Get your grubby Gryffindor mitts off my minion!" And then he fell into a fit of coughing.

Laura tore herself from Potter's embrace and dashed to Draco's side. "Oh, Draco," she said sorrowfully. "Does it hurt much?"

"Yes," he replied, his face rivaling the anguish of the Christ in Michaelangelo's _Pieta_. "It hurts a **lot**."

She smoothed his hair comfortingly. "Poor boy," she crooned, her eyes soft. Then she turned back to Potter, and her eyes… changed. They were still soft, but somehow… hotter. Draco didn't like that **one bit**.

"I have to go to the infirmary with Draco," she told Potter. "But don't think for a moment this is over."

"No," Potter said agreeably. "We should discuss it like civilized people. Say, the Astronomy Tower, 10 pm?"

Laura nodded, her face stern. "Be prepared to receive a firm tongue-lashing."

Potter smiled, his face beatific. "Oh, I will be."

An hour later, Draco was resting comfortably in a hospital bed, his bare chest almost as pale as the bandages that swathed it. Laura was sitting in a chair by the bed, gently clasping his hand. 

"Should I stay with him tonight, do you think?" she asked the others, a frown of worry creasing her smooth brow.

"Yes," Draco said without hesitation. "You shouldn't leave me at all, especially at ten o'clock."

"What's at ten o'clock?" Laura asked distractedly, fussing with his blankets.

Millicent gave her a slow, sly smile. "The argument you scheduled with Potter."

"Oh!" Laura exclaimed. "Oh," she repeated, a tiny grin on her lips as she stared dreamily into the distance. "Quite." Draco rolled his eyes while the other boys exchanged amused glances. "I should go get ready, do you think?" she asked Millicent.

"You have five hours to go," Blaise reminded her. 

"Just enough time!" Laura said cheerfully. "First impressions are very important for these things, you know."

"I thought you were just gonna argue with him," Vincent ventured, scratching his head.

"I'm sure we'll get around to arguing eventually," Laura assured him breezily. "Mil, care to supervise the primping?"

~~~

_Tuesday, 9:37 pm February 19th, Slytherin Common Room_

The next day Laura's sole response to inquiries about how her 'argument' with Harry Potter had gone was a naughty smile and a murmured, "Beautifully." When pressed by Hannah and Susan, she elaborated only a little. "He's very sorry indeed he hurt Draco. He sees the error of his ways, and won't do it again." They didn't think Harry looked so very sorry, however—his smile was very wide and showed almost all his teeth. 

If Harry Potter, The Boy Who Lived, was enough to set Draco's teeth on edge, then Harry Potter, The Boy Who Snogged Laura Madley, was quite sufficient to make Draco long for a license to kill. The Gryffindor had taken to strolling indolently down the corridors with an expression of utter, complete fulfillment on his face that no amount of taunting or teasing on Draco's part could erase. Every overture of mocking was met with a lazy grin, and if Madley were with the Slytherins, a roguish wink in her direction.

"He's not even a boy anymore," Blaise complained. "He's a smirk on legs."

Draco had tried to forbid Madley from associated with the hated Potter, but she'd only dimpled at him and said, "After curfew, my time's my own, Your Highness," in a voice so syrupy sweet he'd wanted to smack her. As a prefect, he was entitled to roam the hallways in search of rule-breakers, so he'd taken to haunting the corridor from which one entered the Astronomy tower but had yet to intercept Madley and Potter on their nightly excursions. 

When he'd overheard Madley and Bulstrode whispering about invisibility cloaks and midnight broom-rides, he ground his teeth so hard he almost cracked a molar.

And then came the news that Pansy Parkinson was returning to Hogwarts. Apparently her trauma from being molested by Goyle and subsequently bearing his egg had faded to the point where she could share a castle with him. Whatever Draco had expected Pansy to do when she was led to the Slytherin common room—perhaps a bit of sobbing or screaming at most—was nothing compared to what she **actually** did. 

Her face was thinner, and wan. No longer the painfully primped girl they are remembered, Pansy stood before them with unteased hair and naked face. Her gaze flicked tensely over Gregory Goyle, but she said nothing. 

"Hallo, Draco," she murmured. 

"Hallo, Pansy," he replied gallantly. "Glad to have you back." Then he stepped back and allowed the others to greet her. Goyle did as he was told and said nothing, merely waving briefly from the far corner in which he'd been placed. 

Pansy wasn't at all surprised to see Laura Madley in the Slytherin common room, as she'd been kept abreast of all the news in the three months she'd spent at home under heavy sedation. She stepped right over to Madley, whose anxious posture indicated she fully expected to be slapped very hard, and said, "I hear you've been snogging Potter. How is he? I always thought he'd be good with his hands."

And without skipping a beat—not a single beat—Madley had smiled dreamily and started babbling about St. Potter's talents in the field of snogging. A moment later, Millicent joined them to add her two Knuts about Roarke's prowess in that field.

Draco and Blaise stood there, watching them with puzzlement plain on their faces—girls were so bloody **weird**—and Goyle ambled over from his corner. Pansy stiffened, showing that she was exquisitely aware of the boy's location, but continued to chat with Laura and Millicent.

"Think I should talk to her about the egg?" Goyle asked Draco. He'd whispered but his _basso profundo_ carried round the stone room as clearly as if he'd used the Sonorus charm. 

That did it. Pansy's tenuous grip over her emotions snapped and she burst into noisy tears. Millicent led her away with a fierce glare over her broad shoulder, and Laura stepped over to the knot of boys, wringing her hands. 

"Gregory, dear," she began, shooting a nervous glance at Draco, "I think it would be best if you didn't mention the egg near Pansy. " She paused, trying to choose her words carefully. "In fact, I think it's best if you don't speak around Pansy at all. Ever again."


	8. Chapter 8

Lonely Reign, Part 8

The huge boy seemed crestfallen. "But… we have an egg together. It's gonna hatch soon, we have to raise it together. We're its parents!"

"Hm, yes, about that, Goyle," Draco ventured. "There isn't going to be any actual 'raising' as such."

"There isn't?" 

"No." Draco actually looked less than completely self-assured. "I suppose now is the time to tell you that your… offspring is going to be taken to a research facility to be studied after its momentous birth."

"Re—search facility?" Goyle's tongue stumbled over the unfamiliar words. "Why?"

"Because its entire existence is extraordinary," Draco replied briskly, earning an admiring glance from Laura at his impressive alliteration. He preened a little, and continued. "It's not every day that a human girl—even a witch—produces an egg of a species that's been extinct for hundreds of years."

Goyle looked blank.

"Your egg is very special, Gregory," Laura explained gently. "Everyone is very excited about it, and they want to know more about it." Comprehension dawned on his coarse features, and she patted his hand. "It—" there was a knock at the door, cutting off her sentence, but she didn't seem to mind at all. 

"Harry!" she exclaimed, a little breathless, and ran to the door. Flinging it open, she was plucked from the portrait-hole and soon thereafter, loud and slurpy snogging noises were heard from that direction. "Mmm, luv, stop a moment," she said with a giggle, and then she was climbing back through the hole, rearranging her mussed robes. 

"Harry and I are just going to… ah… er…" She giggled again as hands groped her from behind. "No, sweetie, I can't concentrate when you… oh…"

Potter popped his head into the portrait hole and grinned at the assembled Slytherins. "We're going to go study," he told them blithely. 

Draco folded his arms over his chest, eyes very narrow indeed as he watched Laura's face take on an expression of lazy anticipation. "Study," he repeated crossly. "And we believe your feeble excuse because…?"

Potter shrugged, supremely unconcerned with Draco's ire. "Didn't say **what** we were going to study."

"Anatomy and Human Sexuality," Blaise murmured, then received a glare from his prince as Potter grinned. 

"Exactly right, Zabini." He turned to Laura. "You ready?" She nodded eagerly, and he helped her climb out again.

There was a long moment of silence before Crabbe said, "How can she study if she left all her books here?"

~~~

_Tuesday, 9:51 pm February 19th, Flitwick's Charms classroom_

As soon as Laura and Harry entered the Charms classroom they usually appropriated for their snogging sessions, all expressions of affection and fondling ceased.

"Harry, you are simply the sweetest thing, ever!" Laura exclaimed breathlessly, eyes bright. "I can't tell you how much I appreciate your help. It was so super that you kissed me at the Quidditch match, such a dramatic way to start this whole thing!"

"Not a problem," he replied with a jaunty grin. "It's helping me toward my goal, too." He hopped up to sit on Flitwick's desk. "And you're the mastermind behind the whole thing. I'd have never thought of it before you approached me with the idea to make them jealous with each other." A soft laugh. "A Hufflepuff. Who'd have thought?" He eyed her with admiration. "How're things going with you?"

"Oh, he's been very annoyed, indeed," she told him, sitting on a student desk and crossing her legs demurely. "Almost to the point of teeth-gnashing, but not quite."

"Gotta say, Laura, I'm baffled why you want to hook Malfoy," Harry mentioned. "Surely there are dozens—hundreds—**thousands** of better blokes out there you could fixate on?"

She gazed innocently at him. "The same could be said of Hermione." He ducked his head, blushing. "We're both in situations where we're desperate to gain the attention of the person we love. At least you know she loves you back, even if it's only as a friend." Laura sighed and stared at her dangling feet. "I can't tell whether he hates me or not."

"Isn't he ever nice to you?" Harry asked, green eyes curious behind the spectacles.

"Sometimes," she admitted, glancing up at him. "And sometimes he's horrid. I never know what it'll be at any given moment. Perhaps that's why I like him so much…" Her words trailed off and she gazed into the far corner, thinking. "He keeps me on my toes."

Harry looked skeptical, but said nothing. "Life with him will never be boring," he allowed.

"So," Laura began after a moment of silence. "Why do you love Hermione?"

He was quiet so long, she thought he wasn't going to answer. Finally, "Because she's so loving. And gentle. And generous. And strong. And brave. And smart. And—"

"Ok, I get it!" she interrupted, laughing, then grew serious, her eyes gentle on him as she stood and walked over. "She's lucky to have you love her so much." And she kissed him tenderly on the lips, her arms embracing him in a soft hug. "Harry, you are a lovely boy." He hugged her in return, blinking back sudden tears.

"Right," drawled a voice from the doorway. "Enough of that, then." 

Laura and Harry disentangled themselves from each other to see Draco standing there, twirling his wand in his slender fingers. His face was amused and derisive, but his eyes… oh, his eyes. They were glacial, and before he narrowed them at her, Laura could detect the faintest flicker of jealousy and… hurt?

Part of her rejoiced that her plan was working, but another part felt horrible for making him feel bad. He beckoned her to his side with a crooked finger. _I just don't know what else to do_, she thought miserably as she walked toward him, and hoped he'd understand one day. His hand bit into the soft flesh of her arm as he grasped her and steered her out of the classroom. She looked back at Harry and saw he was once more wearing his smug, just-got-snogged face. Daring a glance up at Draco beside her, she noted how tightly his jaw was clenched and knew he'd seen it too.

"Bye, Harry," she said, forcing her voice into a dreamy, reluctant-to-be-parted tone, and winced as the grip on her arm tightened and Draco began dragging her down the hall.

"See ya, Laura," Harry replied insolently, and sauntered in the opposite direction, toward Gryffindor tower. 

She kept looking back with supposed longing until Draco hissed, "If you don't stop doing that, Madley, I'll snap your neck."

"Don't know why it matters to you," she protested sulkily. "Not like **I** matter to you at all. I'm just Alterna-Pansy, and now that she's back, I'm not even that. I'm nothing to you." They ground to a sudden half, and Laura hazarded a glance up at him.

His hair was gilded by the corridor's dim torchlight, and the flickering flame reflected in his pastel eyes almost hypnotically. "That's right," he agreed, his voice silky and low. "You're nothing to me." She winced at the brutality of his words. "But until I release you, you're mine." 

Laura shivered at the ownership blatant on his face, and wondered if there were something wrong with her for enjoying his claim on her. For wanting to be possessed by him. Perversely, she felt compelled to offer at least a token protest. "No," she whispered. "I'm not yours. I'm my own."

His hand moved from her arm, which she rubbed to ease the soreness, to her cheek, brushing her hair back over her shoulder before cupping her smooth skin. "You're mine," Draco repeated, and lowered his mouth to hers. His kiss was meant to be brief, a branding, a mark of ownership to prove that he could do with her what he pleased.

But he hadn't counted on the fact that Laura Madley had wanted him to kiss her for a very long time, and that she would melt against him like warm honey in fevered relief. Nor had he thought she'd wind her arms around his neck, tangle her fingers in his hair, and massage his scalp as she kissed him back.

And he certainly hadn't expected to hear her whimper in pleasure when his lust overrode his wish to make his point, and he sucked her bottom lip before licking her upper one. _Oh, she tasted sweet_, he thought dazedly, slanting his mouth over hers over and over, his tongue spearing into her, dueling with hers. He hardened insistently against the softness of her belly, and it was only as he realized he was lowering them both to the cold stone floor that he came to his senses.

_Bloody hell_, he thought, gasping both mentally and physically. He'd very nearly shagged her in the hallway, and judging by the look on her face— longing, disappointment, hunger—she'd not have minded overmuch. _But she's Potter's_, a nasty voice in his head reminded him, and he felt his face change from its slackened expression of lust to its more usual sneer. 

"So disappointed I interrupted your shag-fest with Potter than you'd lower yourself to use me, then, Madley?" he ground out, pushed her away from him so that she flew against the wall, hitting it with a faint cry of pain. 

Eyes huge, she reached out to him, but he flinched away. "No, Draco…" she began, but he bared his teeth at her. 

"Do not touch me again," he snarled, eyes colder than anything she'd ever seen before. "I will not be used as a substitute for him."

"You're not!" she cried as he once more grabbed her arm and steered her toward Hufflepuff. "Draco, please…" He felt himself softening toward her even as his chest seemed to seize with an odd pain, as if his heart were being squeezed. 

They arrived at Hufflepuff's portrait, and he flung her toward it. "Do not join us tomorrow, or any other day. You are no longer welcome with Slytherin."


	9. Chapter 9

Lonely Reign, Part 9

Her eyes widened more, somehow, and fat tears began to course down her face. "Please, Draco," she begged. "They're my friends now, don't keep them from me." Her lips were pink and swollen from his voracious kisses, and it took everything within him to keep from tasting her tears, from licking them off her cheeks and trembling chin. 

"You've always laughed at me for being the Slytherin prince," he said at last, hands gripping fistfuls of his robes to keep from touching her. "Always mocked something you never understood. But whether you understand it or not doesn't matter. That's just how it is. And here's a royal decree: you're now banished from the kingdom. Don't come back."

"Draco," Laura whispered, and fell to her knees, sobbing into her hands. The portrait opened and Hannah poked her head out, eyes growing comically wide and mouth falling open in shock at the scene before her. 

"Susan!" Hannah called, scrambling out and falling to the floor beside her friend. Susan appeared moments later and placed herself between the girls on the floor and Draco. 

"What the bloody hell have you done to her?" she demanded, hands on hips, eyes flashing with anger. 

Draco felt his emotions detach from the situation as his father had taught him. His mind grew cool and numb, and he almost sighed in relief at the recession of fury and yearning and betrayal. "Nothing she didn't deserve."

Laura moaned, soaking the blonde shepherdess curls with tears, shuddering rhythmically against Hannah's shoulder as she wept. "You sodding bastard," Hannah spat. The insult quite lost something when spoken in a breathy little-girl voice by a tiny figure in shortie pajamas, but the wealth of loathing behind it was impressive, nonetheless. "How can you hurt someone who loves you so much?"

Draco jerked in surprise before he could control himself. "Love?" he muttered, his gaze drawn to Laura, huddled and miserable on the floor against Hannah. His heart thumped once, twice, hard enough to wrench itself from his chest before the numbness returned to him, and it was as if a mask descended over his face. "Love." He said the word as if it tasted very bad indeed. "I'm sure she 'loves' Potter, too. As often as they can find a spare broom closet." His lip curled as he stared down at them. "How many others has she 'loved'? And should I hie myself to Pomfrey for a test, be sure I haven't caught anything from her?"

Susan slapped him then, very hard right in the mouth, and made his hair fly as his head snapped around. He flexed his neck experimentally and darted his tongue out to taste the blood that spilled from his split lip. "Not bad, Bones," he told her. "Good wrist action, nice speed." She fumed and raised her hand for another blow. "But I wouldn't, if I were you. Forewarned is forearmed, and I **will** hit you back next time." Susan looked like she'd take her chances anyway, but before she decided, a quavery little voice came from the heap on the floor.

"Go away, Draco," Laura said. She sounded exhausted, and so sad. Once more he felt his anger begin to melt away, and was furious at his weakness. "Please, just go."

He forced himself to smirk. "The minion dismisses the prince, hm?"

She pulled away from Hannah and gazed up at him. Her eyes were shockingly empty, their hazel depths dull and dead. "Just go."

Draco's awareness pulled back and it was as if he could see the entire scene from the ceiling. There he was, standing in the middle of the corridor, shoulders square and stiff, hands hidden in the folds of his robes as he stared down. And facing him, the troika, a picture of solidarity. Laura, crumpled and discarded; Hannah, comforting and outraged; Susan, furious and volatile. The stone walls seemed to loom around them, to crowd inward, and he felt… a vague sense of panic, and… other things. Guilt. Regret. Sorrow. Pain. 

Love. 

His heart twisted within him as he realized how he'd hurt her, debased her, mocked her. How he'd taken her kisses, and thrown them back at her, and despair filled him. "Laura…" he whispered at last, reaching out to her. 

"Don't touch her," Susan snapped, slapping his hand back. 

Did she think he'd hurt Laura? He'd never… Draco blinked as he realized that he **had** hurt her, hurt her terribly. He struggled to regain the detachment of before, and felt it close around him like a thick cloak on a winter's day. Turning, he walked away, concentrating on putting one foot on the ground, then the other, as Hannah's and Susan's anxious voices faded in the distance.

"Draco?" 

He blinked and looked up, realizing that those feet of his had carried him back to the dungeons, and he'd been standing before the portrait for an unknown period of time. He wondered how long it had been.

"Draco?" repeated the voice, and he blinked again, recognizing Blaise's swarthy, concerned face. 

"Blaise," he replied calmly, and stepped inside. His face betrayed no emotion at all, like a slate wiped perfectly, utterly clean. 

"Did you find Laura?" Blaise inquired, concern plain in his voice. Draco was dimly aware of others coming to join them, of Millicent and Greg and Vince and even Pansy as she cautiously sidled up, careful to stay on the other side of him, away from Goyle.

"Yes." He didn't elaborate. How could he, when he still felt like he was floating near the ceiling? He tried not to stare at the floor, but couldn't seem to focus his gaze. He settled instead for staring at Crabbe's crooked school tie. It had a mustard spot on it, bright yellow and irregularly shaped. If Draco squinted, he thought it might vaguely resemble a tear-drop. Tears… Laura had cried so many tears, and because of him. This time, not only his heart convulsed, but his stomach as well. The entire contents of his torso seemed to be writhing inside him, struggling to be free of him, to escape an owner who would behave so cruelly.

"Is everything… are you alright?" Pansy asked.

"No," Draco heard himself say clearly. He broke away from Millicent's hand on his arm and walked toward the doorway to the dormitories. "No, not at all." He walked calmly to his room, and knowing they'd follow, into the bathroom, and locked the door with a more obscure charm he knew they wouldn't be able to _alohomora_ open. 

Inside, he methodically brushed his teeth- spitting out blood from his busted lip—and combed his hair, then removed his robes, shoes, and tie. Then he lay on his side in the bathtub and pulled his robes over him as a sort of blanket, and pressed his face against the cool porcelain, hoping it would chill his fevered brain. There were tiny cracks in the enamel, and he traced them with his fingertip, followed them like you would a road on a map, but there was no destination for him.  

He lay there a long time, ignoring their pleas to come out, their thumpings on the door, and eventually fell asleep. 


	10. Chapter 10

Lonely Reign, Part 10

_Monday, 5:13 pm March 3, Great Hall_

Draco was able to avoid too many questions posed by his subjects in the weeks that followed, making sure they were always somewhere too public to engage in the interrogation he knew they longed to put to him and curtly refusing to discuss anything of substance when they were in private. He still felt dazed by the events of that night, but now just as then the familiar numbness engaged his brain and he sailed through the days only a little more remote-seeming than usual.

Even though she still spent a lot of time on her own, Pansy was almost to the point where she only twitched once every few minutes in Goyle's presence. It was a marked improvement over the weeping fits she'd suffered initially, and she was very proud of her progress. She still wasn't primping like she had before, however, in spite of Millicent's gruff pleas.

"Just a little lipstick, then, Pans?" the tall girl would offer. "Or a bit a hairspray?" But nothing they did would entice her—she seemed convinced that it had been her attention to personal aesthetics that had gained Goyle's attention on that fateful day, and that foreswearing all artifice was the only way to protect her chastity.

"Hmph," Blaise grunted one evening at dinner. "It could have just as easily been Draco or me that Goyle started humping. It was just her rotten luck that she was closest."

"And our good fortune," Draco murmured. "Where is Pansy, anyway?"

Millicent peered at him, startled at this rare show of life from her liege. "Said she was going to skip dinner to study in the library," she answered at last. "Still has a lot of make-up work from when she was out." Fiddling with her silverware, she seemed to come to a decision and placed the utensils resolutely on either side of her plate.  "Draco, what's going on with the Hufflepuffs?" she asked bluntly.

"I have no idea," he lied blithely. "Why do you ask?"

"Because Laura's been acting like a zombie, and Abbott and Bones keep shooting you death glares," Blaise replied. "Laura hasn't spoken to any of us in weeks, even in class. She didn't even get the house elves to make a tiramisu for my birthday." His tone was just the **tiniest** bit petulant. "What did you do?"

Draco laughed, a harsh and unpleasant sound that rang out in the large hall, attracting attention from the neighbouring tables. "Just what Malfoys do best," he replied at last, and sipped at his pumpkin juice. His laughter drew the notice of Laura Madley, and before he was entirely sure how it happened, they engaged in a staring contest. _It wasn't challenging so much as… weary,_ Draco thought. As if neither of them had the strength to look away. She was pale, and heartrendingly sad with those big greeny-gold eyes that could somehow make him feel angry and guilty at the same time. 

"Oh, bloody hell," he snapped impatiently, unaware he'd spoken aloud as a wave of pain swept over him once more. When would this nonsense be over? He couldn't recall ever feeling such… discomfort… in the past when he'd suffered other disappointments. Buggering things up with Laura was just another in life's long line of kicks up the arse. So why did it feel as if his heart was being squeezed by a cruel, possibly spike-lined, vice?

Draco pressed his hand to the centre of his chest where that stubborn ache refused to reside and looked around him at his court, who were all staring at him in varying degrees of interest and concern. Millicent and Blaise were smart enough to keep their mouths shut, and turned their attention back to their half-eaten meals, and Goyle's focus had never wandered from his food in the first place, but Crabbe was both a) finished with his dinner and b) too witless to realize that discretion was the better part of valour, especially when dealing with Draco.

"Huh?" he asked, propping his elbow in the butter dish, but Draco had no chance to release his ire upon the hapless idiot because at that moment the doors to the Great Hall burst open with a resounding crash. Pansy Parkinson stood there, chest heaving from exertion. Eyes wide and frightened, hair wild, she was the very picture of panicked agitation, and Draco stood to address the situation.

He was very startled, therefore, when she darted not to the Slytherin table, but toward the House of the Badger. "Laura!" she shrieked. "It's time! It's coming!"

Ignoring the expressions of alarm on the faces of her housemates, Laura was on her feet in a flash, tossing down her napkin. "Calm down, luv," she said soothingly, putting an arm around the quivering girl's waist.  "I'll be right there with you." 

Millicent had started to make her way over upon Pansy's dramatic entrance, and she clapped a large, mannish hand on her housemate's shoulder. "Me, too," she said. Together they led Pansy from the hall, utterly oblivious to the way every eye in the room was clapped on them.

"All right," Draco roared, his voice very loud indeed in the complete and flummoxed silence that had fallen in their wake, "What the bloody hell was that all about?"

~~~

"Didn't know you were in on this, Madley," Millicent muttered as they jogged after Pansy, who'd broken into another run once outside the hall. The girl was in quite a state, mumbling to herself and wringing her hands as she stumbled across the stone-floored corridors. "Thought you were _persona non grata_ with the Slytherins."

"That hasn't changed," Laura replied, and Millicent was surprised to hear the tinge of bitterness in her voice. "But it's not like Pansy has anyone else she can go to, is it? Draco—" she said his voice like a sob, and quickly cleared her throat—"has informed her that the egg is going to be studied by scientists, and she can't very well go against her _prince_, can she?" 

"Laura…" Millicent said warningly, and the Hufflepuff laughed. 

It wasn't a pretty laugh. "Don't worry, Mil, I won't talk dirt about him. I don't want to say his name ever again," she finished in a whisper, her face stricken.

Millicent felt very uncomfortable indeed, outnumbered as she was by both Pansy (who was acting even kookier than Luna Lovegood) and a this-close-to-weeping Laura. Perhaps a change of subject was in order… "How long have you known Pansy was visiting her egg?"

"From the very beginning," Laura replied, quickening her pace when Pansy shrilled "Hurry!" from the end of the corridor and flapped her hands at them to speed up. "She was afraid to tell anyone else, she thought they'd make fun of her." Her face was very determined, as if she'd pound the daylights out of anyone who dared laugh at the maternal feelings of a schoolgirl for her avian offspring. 

Millicent only grunted as they followed Pansy into the infirmary. The girl was already hovering over the soft nest Millicent suspected was due more to Laura's homemaking instincts than Pansy's maternal ones—a low wooden box lined with a soft, fluffy blanket in a soothing shade of butter-yellow. "There's ducks on it," she said, blinking to make sure her eyes were working properly.

"It was the closest I could find to a dodo," Laura sniffed, and gently patted the egg. It was the size of a honeydew melon, tapering slightly at one end of its pale grey shell, and a fine spiderweb of cracks had already made its appearance over the surface. She sat beside Pansy, whose gaze locked on the egg with the zeal of the recently converted, and took the girl's hand. "It'll be soon, Pans, don't worry."

And then there was silence, awkward and thick. Until, that is, Draco stalked into the room followed closely by the rest of the Slytherin sixth-years. Behind them Madam Pomfrey was ushering Professor Dumbledore into the room, chattering excitedly.

"—such an exciting event, a real live example of an extinct species, and to happen at Hogwarts! It's absolutely—" her words jangled to a stop at the sight of so many students gathered in the infirmary, and she ran the most gimlet of eyes over Draco in particular. "Every man jack of you'd better have an injury, or it's detentions for the lot of you!" she declared. 


	11. Chapter 11

Lonely Reign, Part 11

"—such an exciting event, a real live example of an extinct species, and to happen at Hogwarts! It's absolutely—" her words jangled to a stop at the sight of so many students gathered in the infirmary, and she ran the most gimlet of eyes over Draco in particular. "Every man jack of you'd better have an injury, or it's detentions for the lot of you!" she declared. 

("Fine with me," Blaise muttered. "Why are we here, anyway?")

("Hush," Millicent ordered him gruffly, stepping hard on his foot for good measure. Wisely, he hushed.)

"Now, Poppy, I don't think we should spoil such a happy occasion with threats of detention," Dumbledore admonished gently, making his way through the throng toward the bed on which squatted the cheerfully-outfitted box and its occupant. "Have you thought of a name?" he asked Pansy as if it were a perfectly normal, everyday occurrence. Madam Pomfrey narrowed her eyes to slits behind his back and stomped away to her office.

"Depends on if it's a boy or a girl," she replied breathlessly, stroking her hand over the egg's chalky surface as she reveled in being the focus of the headmaster's attention. "For a girl, I was thinking of my grandmother's name…"

"Quite, quite," agreed Dumbledore, stroking his long beard thoughtfully. "And if it's a boy? Gregory Junior, perhaps?"

The large boy stood, shoulders slumped pathetically and head hung low as he stared in dejection at the floor. "She doesn't want to name it after me," he said glumly. "Not after what I did to her."

Pansy turned her stricken gaze first to Goyle and then to Laura, who squeezed her hand tightly. "Gregory," Laura began carefully, "Pansy still isn't… completely untroubled… by you, I'll be honest, but she knows you didn't mean to… er…"

"Shag her, birdy-style," Crabbe added helpfully, then frowned in confusion when everyone either gasped (the girls) or laughed (the boys). Pansy did neither, just stared at him with wide eyes as fat tears rolled slowly down her face.

"Yes, thank you, Crabbe, that's exactly the most appalling thing you could have said," Draco snapped. "You may leave now." He lifted an imperious finger and pointed to the door. Reluctantly, Crabbe shuffled out, looking back over his shoulder in pathetic but ultimately frustrated entreaty. "That goes for the rest of you lot, too," he informed the smugly-smiling Zabini and the glowering Bulstrode. He scarcely spared their retreating figures a glance before turning an expectantly raised brow to Laura, who was steadfastly ignoring him but visibly nervous, the arm she had clasped around Pansy's shoulders shaking a little.

"That means you, too," he told her, trying to infuse his voice with a briskness he didn't feel. He held out a hand to her and tried to ignore the wrench of his heart when she cringed back. Gaze flicking back toward Dumbledore, he found that inestimable gent watching them carefully.

"I don't want to leave Pansy," Laura whispered, never taking her eyes off the egg. Another crack appeared on its surface as she watched.

"I'll be fine," the other girl said suddenly, sniffling even as she lifted her chin. Goyle stared in the vicinity of her left earlobe, abashed. "It's not just Gryffindors who can be courageous."

"Indeed, indeed," Dumbledore murmured, eyes appraising as he watched her untangle herself from Laura's embrace and go to stand beside the box holding her egg. "Off with you two," he commanded Draco and Laura gently, shooing them toward the door, and they left with reluctance. Goyle ambled closer to the egg until he stood looming over the far side of the bed, dull gaze fixed hopefully on his offspring.

The exiled Slytherins waited in the corridor, all looking up hopeful when the infirmary door opened. Interest turned to disappointment, however, when they saw it was just Laura and their liege.

"No news yet, then?" Blaise asked, lounging negligently against the stone wall. 

"Not yet," Draco replied, watching as Laura shivered. The corridor, was made of the same damp, chilly stone as the rest of Hogwarts and he could feel his body temperature dip as they stood there. "Here," he said, very businesslike, as he shucked his robe and draped it across her trembling shoulders. 

"Thank you," she whispered, not meeting his eyes, and Draco found his patience thinning dangerously. The door opened before he could say anything stupid, however, to reveal a sobbing Pansy.

"What happened?" Laura demanded kindly, going to her immediately. "What did Gregory do?"

"I didn't do anything!" the huge boy protested from behind Pansy.

"He didn't do anything," Pansy agreed tearfully. "Madam Pomfrey has contacted the Ministry, they're sending someone over from the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures to take Leopold away!"

Draco lifted an elegant silvery brow. "Leopold?" he drawled. "You're naming it Leopold?"

"Even if it's a girl?" Laura piped up, looking baffled. 

"Especially if it's a girl," Pansy snapped.

Draco wasn't about to begin trying to fathom his housemate's logic. "And," he asked instead, "what's the problem with that?"

"Then we won't get to raise him!" Pansy wailed. "They'll take him away and do experiments on him and, and, oh, Laura!"  With that, she collapsed into the Hufflepuff's arms, weeping noisily. Laura gazed entreatingly over Pansy's head at Draco, who sighed.

"Right," he said resignedly. "Zabini and Bulstrode, you stand by the front door and keep a watch for the Ministry people. As soon as you see them come up from the main gate, Zabini, you stall them while Bulstrode comes to tell us." Nodding, those two dashed off to their posts. 

Draco turned back to Pansy. "I'll handle everything," he assured her, squeezing her shoulder briefly. "Now go back in and see if you can't chivvy your baby along. We don't have much time; they'll Apparate directly to the gates and I don't know how long even Zabini can distract them." Pansy scrubbed at the moisture on her face and dashed back into the room, shutting the door haphazardly behind her. 

"What about me?" asked Crabbe. "I want to do something, too."

Draco opened his mouth, but Laura spoke before he could say anything. "Vincent, why not go to the kitchens and see if you can't get any milk for Robert. You know how babies like milk," she added encouragingly, forcing a smile on her lips when she realized that sending Crabbe away meant she was alone with Draco.

Crabbe was gone almost before she was done speaking. Draco watched her with the predatory laziness for which he was famous, and leant against the wall. Ignoring the damp chill seeping through the thin fabric of his exquisitely tailored shirt, he crossed his arms over his chest and watched her.

Laura was a fidgeter. She paced a bit, then stopped and tapped her foot before deciding to pace some more. Not once did she meet Draco's eyes. 

He finally lost all semblance of patience. "So," he began conversationally, "when are you going to forgive me?"

Her head snapped up, and she stared at him in incredulity. "Forgive you?" she gasped. "Forgive—"

She was prevented from further outraged demands by the appearance of a winded Millicent Bulstrode lurching around the corner toward them. "They're here," Millicent stated without preamble. "Zabini's doing the best he can, but they're very keen to see the dodo."

Draco's face lost its teasing, slightly patronizing mien. "Go back down and help Zabini," he commanded. With a nod, she left. Then he pushed open the door to the infirmary, striding in with Laura close behind.

Pansy took one look at his stern visage and burst into tears once more. "They're going to take our ba-a-a-by," she yowled, taking everyone by surprise when she flung herself into Goyle's arms and pressed her sticky face against his chest. 

Pomfrey bustled forward, arms akimbo as she tried to herd the anxious parents away from the box with its still-unborn occupant. "Now, now," she said in what she thought was a comforting way, "you can't honestly expect to raise this bird yourselves, you're just children! This is a major scientific occurrence, and—" she continued to natter on as Goyle and Pansy backed away from her, his huge hand cupped protectively around her head.

The door banged open. "Draco, we can't keep them any longer!" Millicent cried. "They're coming up!"

Dumbledore stepped forward. He'd been so quiet they'd forgotten he was there. "Bloody hell," Draco muttered, raising his chin as imperiously as he dared and preparing to take the brunt of responsibility for this mutiny.

Instead, Dumbledore reached for the box and lifted it from the bed, handing it to Laura. "Seventh floor," he said cryptically, voice low. "Opposite the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy being clubbed by trolls. Walk past three times."

She blinked stupidly at him, but Draco grabbed her hand and pelted out of the room. As they turned the corner at the far end of the corridor, they heard voices echo behind them: 

"…such an amazing occasion! I thought the only way we'd be able to study a dodo was by dissecting the ones currently kept in the British Museum, and they're understandably squeamish about cutting into them…"

"Yars, yars, having one of our own will greatly increase our knowledge base. And a live one, at that!" 

Draco felt a twist of queasiness in his stomach at the mention of dissection, and snatched the box from Laura's grasp so they could run faster. Skidding around a newel post, he dashed up the stairs, Laura trailing behind him and gasping for breath. At the top of the seventh flight, he allowed her a brief moment to recover before bolting down the corridor to the indicated tapestry. 

"One," he counted under his breath as he walked by. "Two," he said on the second pass. "And, three." 

As they watched, the wall melted away and became a door. Draco pushed it open and ushered Laura inside before pulling the large brass ring on the door. It shut with a resounding clang, and silence fell between them as they realized they were, for all intents, trapped together.

Laura turned abruptly away to survey their surroundings. The room was small and cozy, lined with bookshelves and featuring a blazing fireplace along the far wall. Flanking the hearth were two squashy-looking armchairs with a round table between them, atop which was a pot of tea and two cups on saucers. 

And before the fire was a low bench, the perfect size and height to keep the egg warm as it completed its final stages of hatching. Draco placed the box on the bench and stepped back, watching the firelight flicker over the chalky, mottled surface as warmth infused him. He realized suddenly that he was shivering.

A soft touch on his arm alerted him to his companion; Laura was holding out his robes to him. Still not meeting his eyes but keeping her own latched onto the egg, she murmured her thanks for the robe's loan before moving to pour them each a cup of tea. 

Draco sank into the chair and watched her. She was thinner, he saw, and her face was drawn and pale. There was a fine tremor in her hand as she gave him the brimming cup, but she still refused to meet his gaze. "Madley—" he began.

"No," she whispered, interrupting him. "Just… don't." She turned to watch as another fracture formed on the egg, the faint cracking sound teasing at their ears.

And for the first time in his life, Draco ignored his own desires to do what someone else wished, and kept silent.


	12. Chapter 12

Lonely Reign, Part 12

Draco wasn't used to being patient. He certainly wasn't used to putting himself out for others, not to keeping quiet when he wanted to say something. And Laura was nearly frantic to be away; that much was quite clear. It was therefore with an astonishing amount of relief that they heard the doorknob grind as it was turned. Draco was not surprised to see Pansy rush in, hurrying past him to hover anxiously over her egg like an epileptic hummingbird. Goyle lumbered by in her wake, his face enough to touch a normal person with its expression of slightly confused but nonetheless deep concern.

Draco was pleased to say he was far from normal, and paid his housemates no heed whatsoever, as behind Goyle came the three entities only slightly more welcome in his vicinity than an outbreak of the plague. _In fact_, Draco mused as Potter's bespectacled head  appeared around the door jamb, _a nice set of buboes in the armpit just might be preferable_. 

In the intervening weeks since his cataclysmic interlude with Laura over her behaviour with The Boy Who Made Draco Malfoy Long for a Pair of Thumbscrews, the grand Potter/Madley romance had cooled notably, and the Gryffindor had been observed in much greater proximity to his insufferable mudblood pet— quite nearly close enough for it to be termed "snuggling", though not close enough for it to be "nuzzling", his female housemates had assured him. 

Draco didn't really care what the proper classification was. All he knew was that Laura had liked Potter for some mysterious reason, and Potter had somehow come to prefer the plain, bookish, and all-round unpleasant Granger to the luscious Hufflepuff, who was now doubtless anguished over his defection. He wasn't surprised. Potter had proven himself to have deplorable taste in all other manner of things; why not girlfriends, too_? It really ought not to matter to me,_ he thought as a fine red mist seemed to float up before his vision, _that Laura will be hurt and uncomfortable to see Potter and Granger together, _as they undeniably were if their linked hands and nauseatingly intimate shared glances were any sort of proof. 

For Draco was not a boy accustomed to giving a toss whether or not someone else was hurt or uncomfortable; in fact, he was usually quite happy to encounter someone in either of those states, and took great pleasure in inflicting it upon them if they were not. So the fact that he was working himself up to a right fury on Laura's behalf was imminently baffling to him even as he stepped forward and, with one beautifully effective blow, laid Potter flat on the ground. 

Of course, then Potter's simian friend, Weasley, had to get involved. Alerted by the groans of pain, Goyle joined the fray, and before the girls knew it, there was naught but a flurry of dust and fists as the four boys flung themselves happily into a wild pugilistic tumult. 

Laura was alarmed at first, even going so far as to venture forth with intent to separate them, but Hermione swiftly pulled her back to a safe distance. 

"Let them," she instructed sagely. "They've been aching to beat each other to pulps for years now." Hermione surveyed their cozy surroundings as if Goyle hadn't just had his nose audibly broken. "What's been happening?"

"The egg's hatching," Laura replied succinctly, then flinched back when a spurt of blood came flying their way. "Why are you here?"

"Dumbledore asked us to bring Pansy and Goyle here, since we knew where it was and how to get in," Hermione answered, idly rubbing the toe of her left shoe against the back of her right leg to remove the splatter. "Ooh, Ron, nice one," she commented encouragingly when that boy got in a particularly good punch at Draco. He grinned rakishly at her and so did not see Goyle's ham-sized fist launching toward him until it connected solidly with his chin.

Both girls winced in sympathy and stepped back once more as the spittle flew. "Pansy wants to name the bird Robert if it's a boy, and Leopold if it's a girl," Laura ventured into the awkward silence that commenced.

Hermione's brows lifted skywards. "Why in the world…?"

Laura only shook her head. "You'll have to ask her," she answered, motioning to the girl in question. Pansy sat beside her issue, seemingly oblivious to the mayhem occurring elsewhere in the room. She'd pulled one of the chairs close to the stool upon which the egg reposed, tucking the blanket more snugly around it and stroking it gently. It would have been a tender scene indeed, had it not consisted of one rather manic teen mother and the egg she had expelled whilst in the form of a long-extinct flightless bird. 

Helpless to resist her curiosity, Hermione turned from the fight—the boys were tiring anyway, and it wasn't as entertaining as it had been earlier—and approached the Slytherin. "Pansy?" Hermione addressed her tentatively.

Pansy lifted her teary gaze from where she'd locked it on her unborn child to rest it on the other girl. "Yes?" she replied cautiously.

"Laura just told me the names you want to give your egg when it hatches," Hermione said. "She said you wanted 'Leopold' for a girl," she continued, puzzlement plain on her face.

Pansy snuffled into a crumpled tissue before responding. "And?" she demanded a touch sullenly. It had not been a good day for her—first her egg was in danger of being taken for invasive study by magical scientists, and now she was forced to associate with Hermione Granger: mudblood, Gryffindor, and insufferable know-it-all. 

"And… I was just wondering… why Leopold for a girl?" Hermione's expression was that of a person affronted, as if she considered it very poor manners indeed for someone to do something which she could not fathom. 

Pansy leapt to her feet. "What's wrong with Leopold for a girl?" she exclaimed, face flushing in anger. "My grandmother's name is Leopold!" In the background, groans of pain and a suspicious splooshing sound could be heard.

Hermione took a step back. "Oh," she said. "I… I didn't know. I'm sorry." She turned and began to walk away from the outraged Pansy, but her curiosity got the better of her and before she knew it she was back again, toe tapping the floor impatiently as she strove to figure out a polite way of asking what she wanted to know. 

It proved beyond her, unfortunately. "Why was your grandmother named Leopold?" she blurted out at last. 

Pansy eyed the other girl suspiciously, trying gauge her level of interest and possibility for mockery. Apparently finding the risk acceptable, she said, "We're descendants of the famous composer, Leopold Godowsky. It's been a tradition in the family for ages to have the first-born of a generation carry his name, even if it's a girl. And my egg—" here she began to cry again—"is the first of the next generation to be born."

Hermione listened with wide eyes. Greatly ashamed, she whispered, "Really?"

Pansy grinned suddenly, straightening. "No, not really," she said with great glee. "Bloody gullible Gryffindor. My grandmother's named Leopold because her parents were completely barmy, and I want to name the egg Leopold because the situation's ludicrous enough as it is—can you see me trying to give a dodo a serious name like Elizabeth or Jonathan?"

And Hermione slunk away once more while Pansy's laughter rang off the stone walls. "Bloody Slytherins," she griped to Laura, who stood frozen in horror as the boys staggered to their feet, dripping blood and chips of broken tooth and bits of tattered robe and locks of yanked-out hair. "How've you managed to keep from killing them for so long?"

But Laura did not answer, because she'd caught a few muttered sentences in between all the brawling, most notably Draco's furious, "And that's for throwing Laura over for Granger, you imbecile." She recalled how viciously he and the rest had viciously taken care of Roger Davies a few months earlier, and suddenly the mysterious suddenness of his attack on Harry wasn't so mysterious.

She had underestimated the force of his jealousy, she realized then, as well as the strength of his hurt and rage when he thought she wanted to be with Harry instead of him. His pride was a massive thing, almost its own living entity, and it had been severely mangled by what he considered her deviance in preferring Harry. 

"Because they're lovely," she whispered. At that moment, with his hair looking like it had been chewed off (and judging by the white-gold strands clinging to Ron's lips, it just might have been) and blood smeared across his face from a split lip, Laura thought Draco Malfoy was the loveliest thing she'd ever seen.

And he was watching her carefully, like the predator he was. She was suddenly keenly conscious of how she must look: face pale from the strain and alarm of the last half-hour, robes askew, hair most likely wild from their mad dash up stairs and down corridors to save the egg.

"Madley, you look like someone dragged you through a keyhole backwards," Draco drawled. "Come on, give us a kiss, then." It was the closest he'd ever come to an apology, she realized, and took it as such. 

And as the Golden Trio, Pansy Parkinson, and Gregory Goyle watched in amazement, Laura stepped forward obediently and tilted her face up for his kiss. He tasted like Peppermint Imps and blood, and she quickly drew back. "Draco, I—" she began but was swiftly cut off.

"It's coming!" Pansy shrieked, rushing back to the egg, which had begun to crack in earnest. "It's coming!" She turned back to the others, hands clasped rapturously over her breast. "In just a few minutes, I'll be a mother."

On the best of days, Goyle looked like God had smeared the clay of his visage before it was fully set, and this was far from the best of his days. In spite of that, however, the smile that spread sluggishly over his face made him almost handsome.

Almost.

But not quite.

He plodded over and rested one enormous hand on the egg. "I can feel it move," he said, eyes brightening as he lifted them to meet Pansy's. "It's almost here!"

A loud crack rent the air, and a sizable chunk of shell came away, carefully peeled back by the expectant mother. Another crack, another bit of shell removed. Pansy inserted her fingers into the hole and tugged gently, and with one last crack, the shell split into two. 

And laying there in the midst of it all, soggy and spindly and quite possibly the ugliest thing any of them had ever seen, was Leopold. Pansy's squeal of delight was abruptly silenced by Draco's judicious clapping of his hand over her mouth, lest she damage the baby's newly exposed eardrums, so she settled for hopping up and down excitedly.

Goyle lifted the tiny bird in one huge paw and carefully wiped some goo out of its eyes. When they blearily opened and latched onto his, he smiled goofily before handing it over to Pansy. "Off to your mum, then," he said gruffly, and Laura gazed up at Draco, her gaze liquid.

"Don't get any ideas," he whispered in her ear. "No matter how prettily you beg, I refuse to have a dodo with you."

"Even if I beg very prettily indeed?" she dared to tease, giving him a light pinch on his stomach.

Draco looked thoughtful for a moment, as if he were considering. Then, "No. That's another thing Malfoys don't do—we don't have birds for offspring, no matter how majestic, rare, or amazing a bird it is."

Leopold sneezed and fell over, with the result being that he looked even less majestic than he had before (which is to say, not at all). And Laura just nodded her agreement. She didn't really want to be mother to a bird either, after all.

~ THE END ~


End file.
